As he got back to where the road becomes rock, and sea and land fight for the mastery, he saw, driven by the fierce north-easter, a small barque running before the wind under bare poles, coming round the north-eastern point of the bay. And three coastguards from Boscastle, with the rocket apparatus, came running down the hill. What is it?' said Diggory.

'Tis a li'l barque from Rio to Bristol,' said the Petty Officer. She tried for Boscastle, but missed 'n, and all but smashed her bows in. Then she let down her anchors; but they dragged, and she had to run for 't. We ded run on here with rockets, hoping to get a line out to her from top of Denys. But 'tes impossible. She'll pass out by Gull Rock, and that's a mile away. The rockets wun't carry.'

'Can't she get into Port Issick?

'Her'll be smashed into bits like a matchbox before gettin' there. The biggest ironclad wouldn't last long. Steel plates are of no use against these iron cliffs. The only hope we had was to get her ashore here, as et's low water, and beach her on sand. We might have saved the crew then. Captain's Captain's wife an' baby joined at Falmouth, where the ship went for orders.'

'Can't we get a boat and bring a line ashore?'

"Ee can get out a boat, and there's one lies round in the harbour, and I'm with 'ee ef 'tes possible to get a crew; but bringin' a line ashore, or gettin' ashore ourselves alive, es doubtful. Ef et's to be done, et must be done now, for she'll soon be abreast of us.'

Diggory and the three coastguards went round to the harbour, and the Petty Officer asked,

'Who'll make the fifth?'

As they drew near to the boat, they saw Annie and the sailorman sitting on the gunnel and talking earnestly.

'Here's the man,' said Diggory. He's a mate on one of the St. Ives boats. Ask 'n to go.

'Now, my man,' said the Petty Officer, 'up you get and lend us a hand down with this boat. Will you take a cruise with us this mornin'?'

'You're never going to put out to-day?'

'Look out by the Gull Rock and see that ship.-By the Lord Harry, she's got her anchor to hold this time! If it holds long enough there's a chance. But 'tes bound to drag before long. We'm goin' to bring a rope ashore and get they people off.'

'No good. It can't be done.'

'But we'm daggin' to try. And we want another good sailor with us.'

'I'm not going to throw my life away over any such foolishness.' 'The Cap'n's wife and baby are aboard.'

It is hard to be shown up as a coward before one's sweetheart; but the sailorman tried to get out of it.

Would you like me to go and get

'Here's my sweetheart. Would

drowned before her eyes?

'I'm done with 'ee. You're a coward. Ef your sweetheart's a Cornish girl, she'd rather see 'ee drowned like a brave man than live like a coward. Us four'll go.'

'I'll go,' burst out Annie.

'I can steer a boat.'

'Thank you, my girl. But I dun't think God needs 'ee just yet. I've a maid about your size to Boscastle. Let me kiss you, and do 'ee give 'n to her ef I dun't come back.'

So Annie kissed the Petty Officer, who, with his men and Diggory, ran the boat down to the sea.

As soon as he saw what was going forward, old Penberthy, who brings the sand up from the beach for the farmers, hobbled rheumatically after them. As Penberthy grew old, unlike most people, he became taciturn; and now he got into the stern sheets and took the tiller without saying anything.

Bravo, Uncle Penberthy!' said the Petty Officer. 'But 'tes a rough day, and you'm not so young as 'ee were. Dun't 'ee think 'ee'd better stop ashore ?'

"Tes my boat,' said Penberthy, with a dry chuckle down inside him. I be goin' to look after 'n.

Now

They pushed off, the coastguards and Diggory pulling hard at the oars and Penberthy keeping her nose well to the waves. they were high up in the air, and Penberthy had a good view of the barque, while Diggory saw Annie and the sailorman watching them. Now they were down in the depths with the deep blue water below, mountains of green marbled with white around them, nothing to be seen but water and the sky above. Penberthy kept a set face and a steadfast gaze when possible on the barque, and always on the waves ahead. The four rowers tugged away. It chanced that a moment came when they were uplifted on the crest of a giant wave, and Penberthy's eyes were on the barque. And what he saw was this. The anchor-chain, running in the hawsepipe, had suddenly cut through the knighthead and stemson and down to the keelson. As he looked he saw the barque quiver with the inrush of water; and then the boat sank for what seemed the lifetime of a nightmare, in which so much is always about to, but never does, happen. The others saw his fixed glare, and knew that something was going on. But there was no good to be done by talking. If they were to die, they had better die pulling hard than talking. So they only set their teeth and worked away. Penberthy had his face turned towards the ship as the boat rose; and he saw those on board standing by the bulwark, looking towards those who were trying to rescue them.

Again they came up, and
Down and up again they
But each time the barque

Penberthy said nothing, but kept giving time for the stroke as they went down again into the glassy valley. Penberthy saw the people waving to him. went a score of times, each time nearer. was a little lower in the water. Still Penberthy said nothing, but timed the strokes quicker and more forcibly. All this time the five heard nothing, for, although those on board seemed to be shouting, the voices were carried away by the wind. Then there came a time when, as they reached the crest of the wave, Penberthy broke his silence, and said:

Next time we shall be alongside. Pull, boys. The Cap'n's wife's wavin' at 'ee over bulwarks.'

They pulled hard down into the trough; and then they heard the first sound since they set out, except the roar of the sea, the squish of the wet leather in the thole pins, the screech of the choughs, and Penberthy's one speech. It was now that they heard a great shriek made up of many shrieks, and it turned all their throats to dry dust, so that they swallowed and did not speak until the boat rose again. Penberthy looked, and said:

'She's gone.'

The old hand on the tiller that had brought them so far in safety relaxed; the boat broached to, got broadside to the wave; and, before they knew what had happened, she was upside-down, and all five were struggling in the water. Four held on to their oars, and Penberthy supported himself by the boat. He was an old man, and feeble. Yet he clutched the tin bailer.

'We'll all get our oars together, and Uncle Penberthy shall hold them,' said the Petty Officer, 'while the rest of us tread water on one side of her and lift her altogether.'

So they laid the oars in a faggot, and Penberthy sat astride them, while the rest took hold of the port gunnel, trod water, and prepared to lift altogether. The Petty Officer gave the word :

'Now, lads, all ready: heave. Once again, now heave. Let her go, boys: heave.'

It was only after the lapse of half an hour, and after many rests, that, aided by a favouring wave, they got the boat righted. Diggory climbed aboard and baled out; and, one by one, as she rose in the water, they all got in, though it was a heavy job to lift up Penberthy, whose life the cold water had almost chilled out. As soon as they got him in, he said,

'We'm just a-goin' to pull over by where thiccy barque went down an' see ef any one's about yet.'

'Why, uncle,' said the Petty Officer, ''ee've more spunk in 'ee than most of these young uns, now. Long may 'ee live to

show 'n!'

Not so, my son. I've tried to serve the Laard all my life, an'

'twould be a bad reward ef A lets me live much longer, considerin' my rheumatiz.'

They pulled over and over the place of the wreck, picking up a hencoop and a few odd things; but they saw nothing of any of the crew, who must all have been sucked down with the barque.

'They wun't come up for a day or two,' said the Petty Officer. 'Come, uncle put her about. Us've done our duty.'

Penberthy put her about, and they made steadily for the shore. All were men of work, not of words. All, if they had time for thought beyond their present work, had much of which to think in what had just befallen. Penberthy took the boat, as true as a die, to the beach, with a firm and steady hand.

She ran up on the sand. The four jumped out, and, with the help of many willing hands-for folks had gathered on the shore by this time-they hauled her up while Penberthy took off the rudder. Then they lifted him out, and made their way to his house, where he had rum; and, as they went, they passed Annie and the sailorman.

'You girt coward,' said Diggory, 'to let a brave old man like this do what you daren't do! What do you think of 'n now, Annie? ' Then, with that simple vanity which can never be quite separated from the poetic mind, he added:

'Do you still think more of 'n than of me?'

Annie, whose mind was wavering in the balance between her two suitors, let her mind go hang, and let her heart speak.

'He's not a coward. He did what he did for my sake. And, if I didn't love you before, I hate you now. If you think I can love a man because he is brave or good or handsome or rich, you have yet to learn what love is.'

Diggory said nothing, but thought of what Dicky Wade had

said:

"Tes not with maids what a man has, or what a es. even what a does, but the way a does et.'

'Tes not

CELLENCY THE HONOURABLE JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE, AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO THE COURT OF

ST. JAMES'S

URING his brief term of power, Abraham Lincoln was probably the object of more abuse, vilification, and ridicule than any other man in the world; but when he fell by the hand of an assassin, at the very moment of his stupendous victory, all the nations of the earth vied with one another in paying homage to his character, and the thirty-five years that have since elapsed have established his place in history as one of the great benefactors, not only of his own country, but also of the human race. One of many noble utterances upon the occasion of his death was hat in which Punch made its magnanimous recantation of the spirit with which it had pursued him :

Beside this corpse that bears for winding sheet
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes he had lived to shame me from my sneer
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen-
To make me own this hind-of princes peer-
This rail-splitter-a true-born king of men.

Fiction can furnish no match for the romance of his life; biography will be searched in vain for such startling vicissitudes of fortune, so great power and glory won out of such humble beginnings and adverse circumstances. In the zenith of his fame he was the wise, patient, courageous, successful ruler of men; exercising more power than any monarch of his time, not for himself, but for the good of the people who had placed it in his hands; commander-in-chief of vast military power, which waged with ultimate success the greatest war of the century; the triumphant champion of popular government; the deliverer of four millions of his fellow men from bondage; honoured by mankind as Statesman, President, and Liberator.

a

Let us glance now at the first half of the brief life, of which this was the glorious and happy consummation. Nothing could be more squalid and miserable than the home in which Abraham Lincoln was born-a one-roomed cabin without floor or window in what was then the wilderness of Kentucky, in the heart of that frontier life which swiftly moved westward from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, always in advance of schools and churches, of books and money, of railroads and newspapers, of all things which are